When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. A useful analogy for making the best of a sour situation, but what happens when life gives you a stick of rhubarb, a kohlrabi or a cabbage? What do you make then?
This is the premise behind chef, recipe writer and author Ceri Jones’ first cookbook, It Starts with Veg: 100 Seasonal Suppers and Sides, £20, published this month by Pavilion Books.
In her new book, Ceri takes 40 vegetables – from the humble potato to celeriac – and walks us through the best (and most delicious) ways to prepare veg – ideal for those of us looking to add more fibre to our diet (yes, we’re meant to be hitting 30 plants a week, not just 5 a day...) or wanting to shake up our summer salad repertoire.
Designed to get on the table with minimal fuss, the recipes are all written to serve two people and are super easy to scale up if you want to cook for more.
We’ve scoured through and picked out our favourite summer recipes, where the vegetables are truly the stars of the show. Happy cooking!
Braised Baby Gem, Pancetta, and Peas
Cooked lettuce is best for days when the calendar says summer, but British weather is giving you damp autumn. A variation on a French-style recipe for braising lettuce with peas and sometimes bacon, which I once tried in a pub in, err, South East London. Just a little pancetta is used in this braise, most of the body comes from the lettuce, peas, and chickpeas. It’s a really good example of how meat can be used in small quantities to add depth of flavour but doesn’t distract from the vegetables. Serve with bread to mop up the juices, or with rib-sticking mashed potatoes for something more substantial.
You can try substituting the gem lettuce, for larger romaine, cos, or wedges of endive.
SERVES 2 AS A MAIN | TIME TO PREPARE – 20 MINUTES
Ingredients:
- 100g/31⁄2oz diced pancetta
- 2 little gem lettuce (approx. 100g/31⁄2oz each), sliced into quarters through the core
- 2 spring onions, finely sliced
- 1 x 400g/14oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 160g/53⁄4oz frozen peas
- 200ml/7fl oz chicken stock
- 2 tbsp crème fraîche
- 1 tbsp finely chopped herbs (e.g. tarragon, mint, or parsley, or a combination)
- salt and pepper
Method:
- Warm a lidded, deep, wide frying pan over medium-high heat (no oil required) and cook the pancetta cubes for around 5 minutes, until browned. Remove using a slotted spoon and leave the fat in the pan.
- Cook the gem lettuce wedges in the pancetta fat, cut side down for around 90 seconds on each flat side, until just starting to char. Use tongs to lift out of the pan, and set aside.
- Lower the heat, and the pancetta back into the pan, along with the spring onions and soften for a minute or so.
- Next add the chickpeas, frozen peas and chicken stock, then nestle the charred lettuce back in, cut side up. Bring to a bubble, cover the pan with a lid and simmer for around 10 minutes, or until a knife glides easily through the stalk of the thickest wedge of lettuce.
- Remove the lid, and if the stock needs reducing, cook uncovered for a few minutes more. Dollop in the crème fraîche, and gently shake the pan to dissolve it into the sauce.
- Add the chopped herbs and season to taste – it may already be salty enough because of the pancetta, but you can afford to be liberal with the pepper.
Roasted New Potato and Green Bean Salad with Mint
No summer BBQ is complete without a potato salad, and this is my go-to. I know, I know, waxy new potatoes are meant to be served boiled, but I don’t love the papery skins so prefer to roast until the skins are crispy yet the insides remain soft.
I sometimes use thinly sliced shallots instead of spring onions, swap them in for watercress or the green beans for asparagus.
SERVES 2 AS A SIDE | TIME TO PREPARE – 40 MINUTES
Ingredients:
- 400g/14oz baby or new potatoes, scrubbed clean and left whole if small enough or chopped into bite-sized pieces
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 150g/51⁄2oz green beans, end trimmed and cut in half or into 3 x 2.5cm/1 inch pieces
- 2 spring onions, very thinly sliced on an angle
- zest of 1 lemon
- large handful of mint leaves (approx. 5g/1/8oz )
- salt and pepper
FOR THE DRESSING
- 1⁄2 tsp wholegrain mustard
- 1⁄2 tsp honey
- juice of half a lemon (approx. 1 tbsp)
- 3 tbsp olive oil
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 200°C fan/220°C/450°F/gas mark 7.
- On a baking tray, toss the potatoes with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and season with salt. Roast for 20 minutes.
- Reduce to 180°C fan/200°C/400°F/gas mark 6 and cook for another 15 minutes, until crispy on the outside and cooked through on the inside. Remove from the oven and cool off for a short time, around 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, make the dressing. In a small bowl stir together the mustard, honey, and lemon juice until combined. Whisk in the oil until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside for the flavours to mingle.
- Bring a small saucepan of salted water to the boil, then blanch the beans for 2–3 minutes, until just al dente. Drain and rinse immediately under cold water until cold to the touch. Shake off any excess water then leave to dry on kitchen paper.
- To put the salad together, toss the cooked potatoes in a medium-sized bowl with the beans, chopped spring onions, and enough dressing to just coat. Season with lemon zest, then tear your mint leaves and add to the bowl (they will go black more quickly if sliced). Transfer to a serving platter or bowl to serve.
Cherry Tomatoes with Puy Lentils, Capers, and Dill
I came up with this recipe whilst cooking on an early summer retreat near Sorrento in southern Italy a few years ago. The tomatoes were so incredible, I found myself continually searching for new ways to incorporate them into meals to keep the guests happy. They needed barely more than a helping hand from olive oil, salty capers, and dill to complement their flavour. The recipe followed me back home to London, and here I regularly make this with raw cherry tomatoes or best-of-the-season larger tomatoes on the vine, to try and replicate the taste of the Italian sun-drenched tomato.
For a variation, substitute the tomatoes with roasted peppers or aubergines.
SERVES 2 AS A MAIN, 4 AS A SIDE | TIME TO PREPARE – 40 MINUTES
Ingredients:
- 100g/31⁄2oz puy lentils, rinsed
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 tbsp olive oil, plus more to drizzle
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 plump garlic clove, finely chopped
- 3 tbsp capers
- 300g/101⁄2oz cherry tomatoes, halved, or large tomatoes sliced into wedges
- 25g/1oz bunch of dill, fronds finely chopped
- a handful of basil leaves
- salt and pepper
Method:
- First, cook your lentils. Place lentils in a saucepan with 300ml/10fl oz water (3 x the lentil weight) and a bay leaf. Bring to the boil then reduce to a gentle simmer. Cover and cook for 22 minutes, until the lentils are soft enough to eat but retain some bite in the centre. Turn off the heat, sit for 5 minutes, then drain, shaking off as much excess water as possible. Discard the bay leaf.
- In a medium-sized bowl, toss the warm lentils with the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, and capers, then allow the lentils to cool off so they’re no longer steaming before stirring in the fresh tomatoes and dill. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Plate up on a serving platter and finish with a few basil leaves and another drizzle of olive oil.
It Starts with Veg: 100 Seasonal Suppers and Sides by Ceri Jones (Pavilion Books, £20). Available now.
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With nearly a decade of journalistic experience – in print, online and social – at national newspapers and lifestyle magazines, it’s fair to say Alice has tried it all when it comes to health and fitness. From packing herself off to an extreme Aveduric retreat in Sri Lanka and sweat-testing every new fitness fad to running the London Marathon and completing a 70.3 IronMan, Alice now looks after WH’s food content. With a ‘food first’ ethos, she is here to help you decipher exactly which foods will support your health, and which macro-counting, pasta-replacing, intermittent-fasting, 13-day cleanse is just, well, a scam. A keen baker and host, her favourite dessert has to be pavlova (with lots of summer berries and whipped cream, of course).
